Cultivate hope each day this week.
December 3: Hope through Community
- Scripture: Romans 15:13 — May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
- Meditation: Part of our capacity to hope comes from being connected to other people, or to the natural world. We are designed to relate to others. For instance, our brains have mirror neurons! We are created, as humans, to belong within creation and community. For humans, at our best, hope is strengthened by relationship and community.
- Spiritual Practice: Reach out to a friend or family member and express a word of encouragement.
SONGS:
- The Crowded Table by The Highwaywomen: https://youtu.be/ZPfI8zBWub4?si=-hE3KF11tFauJs5g
I’ve convinced myself that no one will want to live in community with me unless my house is clean, my cooking impeccable, my outfits trendy, and my life in order. I’ve convinced myself that work is the most important thing in my life, that I’ve got nothing to offer a community until I’ve sold a gazillion copies of my book and nabbed that elusive dangling carrot of “success.” I’ve convinced myself that community will have to wait until I’ve got it all together…and until everyone else has it together too. I’ve convinced myself that a community is a place without sin or conflict or change.
The great irony, of course, is that community thrives on imperfection.
Where one person is weak, another is strong. When one person falls, another is there to help. When one person cooks, another can clean, another can teach, and another can lead. Where one sees the forest, the other sees trees.
We need community precisely because we are imperfect, and if we wait until we are perfect to embrace community, it will never happen.
I’ve just got to get over myself enough to realize that I am not the exception to this rule.